Sunday 22nd of December 2024
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Not safe abroad, or at home.

Under Howard Australia has witnessed a continuous decline not only in the protection we give to the human rights and safety of others, but also to the human rights and safety of our own citizens. When the Tampa arrived in our waters all those years ago it high-lighted a new policy of detain and deter in relation to refugees seeking protection from persecution in their homelands.

The message appears to be that individuals should subject to the law of the land they come from.

In the years that followed there was several high profile cases of Australians running into trouble overseas, and being told that it was the jurisdiction of another country and the individuals in question must be subject to it. This has included cases of executions, lifetime imprisonments, and long terms of being held without charge. Even by close allies holding Australians.

As a comparison, other countries in similar situations have invoked high level interventions to retrieve their citizens, to protect them from human rights violations, and ultimately to try and punish them if it was deemed that any indiscretions had occurred.

Last week Australia's slide took a further step with the extradition of Hew Griffiths, from Berkeley Vale in NSW to the United States of America. Griffiths is charged with cracking software copy protection, costing around $US50M to the software makers, and if found guilty will face jail in the US, even though he has never left Australian soil. This extradition was signed off by former justice minister Chris Ellison, in spite of the possibility of trying and jailing Griffiths in Australia.

In comparison, two years ago two US Marines stabbed a Townsville man in the neck while on shore leave. “The Townsville student never had the chance to give evidence against them in the court and he was not told by either the US or Australian Governments of the acquittal, only learning about the case through the media.”

And of course there is the Jayant Patel case which involved the deaths of many patients. He is currently living in the US, and efforts to extradite him back to Australia are moving slowly to say the least.

I think this is a prudent issue to be raised in this election year. The protection afforded by being Australian is small, and appears to be shrinking. Perhaps it's time to investigate British citizenship.

daily terror

Daily Tele's baby headline spot on, says PM

Prime Minister John Howard has strongly defended Sydney newspaper the Daily Telegraph over the way it reported the abandonment of a baby girl.

The Daily Telegraph today ran a headline saying "How could she", after the baby was left outside a Melbourne hospital wrapped in towels in a fruit carton.

The newspaper has come under attack from former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, who is the chairman of mental health initiative BeyondBlue.

Mr Kennett has told ABC's The World Today that the newspaper's editor, David Penberthy, should resign.

"To try and apportion blame without knowing any facts at all, this editor should be bloody sacked..." he said.

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Gus: as an expert on depression, I am 100 per cent behind Jeff Kennett... The editor should be sacked but it won't happen... And John Howard should be sacked too for saying this stupid blancmange of contradictions:

"I feel for the mother, I feel for the baby, I feel for the woman's family, but fair go to the Tele..."

Yes this Prime Munster, in all its cunning ways, puts two bobs on all the horses in the field... He would not have a F*&^%$# clue about the woman's (if it was a woman who did the deed — could have been a bloke) predicament.

Yeah? "fair go to the Teleterrorgraph..."? The home of most of Johnnee's spruikers? No way Jose! This one takes the cake of bad taste, of ill will and of compassion from a squashed gnat. Our PM has shown his true colours: a grey wash of mishmash of nothingness with feelings of a wet cardboard box  ...

I heard the editor of the terrograph, when he was on ABC 702 show after Jeff kennett, when he expressed a few ideas showing he has no idea on what can trigger such an act of despair and had no idea how his headline was so bloody wrong...

Back in 2003, a telling headline would have been "how could he?" when John Howard took this country to war against Iraq, now a quagmire of bad will... with 700,000 dead, 1.5 million people displaced and ruined, , 70 per cent of the population resenting the presence of US troops, etc... A simple assertive examination of the "evidence" promoted by the government would have suffice to show they were lies, enough to stop our warrior-in-chief defy MOST of the Australian public... Any 8 year old Neo Zealander could have discovered that there was no vitamin in the Bush-Blair and Howard's arguments for war. No, but the TeleMoron ran headlines like "Latham's tax probe"... A headline that could also apply to John Howard at the time but chose to hit Labor for six with no substance but fake smoke...

The sad part in all this is that "mental health" in this country is on its knees... It is designed far more for the providers than the patients, except in dedicated cases... Mental health is now more and more shovelled towards charity and religious organisations with no expertise but a "trust god, things will be okay in the after-life"...

People who abandon a child are not unique and events like this go back to biblical times... there are times in which people are facing "demons" — immediate dangers, real or imagined. Moses was one of the children abandoned... In their story, the Jews owe Moses a lot... True or fable, the story explains a trauma in which a solution is found beyond the despair, not a F*&^%$ headline beyond the pale...

John Howard should be ashamed of himself. He should resign.

Tabloid polloy

From nineMSN

Public pressure for the tabloid to apologise for its "How Could She" headline follows yesterday's heated debate in which John Howard proclaimed his support for the Telegraph and beyondblue chairman Jeff Kennett called their actions "unprofessional".

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Gus: see blog above 

secret secrecy business

From the ABC

Indigenous adviser to face court over leak

A federal Indigenous policy adviser has appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court facing Commonwealth charges of leaking information.

Tjanara Goreng Goreng is facing seven counts relating to the unauthorised disclosure of documents or information.

The nature of the charges was not revealed in court.

Goreng did not appear, and the matter has been adjourned until early next month.

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